


From The Ashes

by katling



Series: Tony Stark Bingo [26]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Endgame Fix-It, F/M, He's there, Moderated lightly for my peace of mind, Not Steve Friendly, Pepper has had it with the lot of them, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Prequel, Sort Of, Tony is kind of Sir Not Appearing In This Fic, but not there, not team Cap friendly, with a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22490914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katling/pseuds/katling
Summary: In the aftermath of the defeat of Thanos, Stephen wishes he'd found another way. Or Tony had found another way. But the thing is, Stephen never really looked beyond them winning or losing and sometimes the only way to win is to lose.This is a prequel toRestoration.Written for the Tony Stark Bingo - Card 3054, Square R5: Endgame Fix-It
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Series: Tony Stark Bingo [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1270763
Comments: 21
Kudos: 624
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	From The Ashes

The battle was long over but Stephen Strange didn’t feel any peace or happiness. He knew he was confusing and worrying Wong with his gut-wrenching despair and grief over Tony’s death but how could he explain it? How could he explain that over four million futures had shown him that the only way to defeat Thanos for good was for Tony Stark to die? That he’d known that when he’d given up the Time Stone, known he was condemning Tony to death and leaving his wife without a husband and worst of all, his daughter without her father. 

He walked quietly down the corridors of one of the few remaining outbuildings of the Avengers Compound that had been quickly repurposed into temporary quarters and a medical wing in the wake of the battle. Normally, the Cloak would have been billowing dramatically, something they both found amusing, but instead it was curled around him, offering what comfort it could. His fingers were caught in the folds of the Cloak and he was clutching like it was his only anchor… which in a way it was. 

He could hear the distant sounds of celebration as he walked, even muted as they were by grief and exhaustion, but he felt no desire to join them, even if there were many who wanted to offer their thanks and congratulations for his efforts during the battle. He didn’t have the heart to celebrate and accepting their adulation would have made his mouth feel as though it was full of ashes. He knew Potts and Rhodes were somewhere private, looking after the Parker kid and grieving for their mutual loss, so he’d felt no compunction to attend the celebration. He’d managed to avoid Wong’s well-meaning concern as well.

He pushed open the door to the makeshift morgue. It held only one body, lying in state like the leader and hero that he was. The chair beside the table told him he wasn’t the first to have made this trek and he sank into it gratefully. 

He buried his face in his hands and stayed like that for a while. He then scrubbed his face with both hands and raised his head to look at Tony.

“I was hoping you’d find another way,” he said quietly, every trace of his normal arrogance gone. “As I felt the dust take me, my last thought was the hope you’d find a way I hadn’t seen. The four million, six hundred and _fifth_ future.” He fell silent for a moment then sighed. “But then I came through the portal and saw that everything was as I’d seen.”

He ran one shaky hand down his face again as the Cloak curled even tighter around him. He wondered if it thought it was the only thing holding him upright. He wondered if it was right.

“You bastard,” he whispered, not caring in the slightest about the grief and guilt making his voice thick and hoarse. “Smartest mind of our generation and you couldn’t come up with something better than being a damned martyr?”

He let out something akin to a sob and swallowed the lump in his throat. As he did, his gaze drifted over the terrible burns on Tony’s face and arm and up to his chest where the nanites of his suit had etched themselves into his skin as they died under the power of the Infinity Stones.

It was so small that he almost didn’t see it, almost didn’t register what he was seeing. And even when he did, he almost didn’t believe that the infinitesimal rise and fall of Tony’s chest was real until he saw it happen again. 

The chair he’d been sitting on clattered as it toppled over, so quickly had he stood up. The Cloak flared out behind him as he leaned over and quickly checked Tony’s vitals. He then did it again with magic to make sure he wasn’t deluding himself.

Tony was _alive_. In some sort of deep hibernation but alive.

Stephen reeled and clutched at the table, his hands aching with how tight his grip was, but he didn’t care. He could feel the wetness on his face, but he didn’t care about that either. He hadn’t looked beyond Tony’s death. He hadn’t looked to see whether there might be any way that Tony would survive.

“FRIDAY?” he said with a gasp, remembering what Tony had told him about the AI on their way to Titan, something that had occurred only a few hours ago by his standards.

“Yes, Dr Strange,” she said, her voice tired and full of grief as she spoke to him from the building’s PA system.

Stephen marvelled for a moment at the humanity of the person Tony had created then he pulled himself together as much as he could.

“Please ask Ms Potts and Colonel Rhodes to come down here. I know they won’t want to but tell them it’s urgent.”

“Why?” FRIDAY asked suspiciously.

Stephen gave a soft incredulous laugh. “Because Tony isn’t dead.”

There was a moment of silence. “What?”

“Do you have any sensors here?”

“No,” FRIDAY said. “This building was used for storage. There’s the PA system that I’ve hacked into and there’s cameras on the perimeter but nothing else.”

“Then take my word for it.”

There was a long pause. “Dr Strange,” she said carefully. “I know you regret boss’ death…”

“He’s alive,” Stephen said firmly, his hand reaching out to rest on Tony’s chest, to feel that minute rise and fall.

There was another long pause before FRIDAY said, “I’ve asked them to come down.”

“Thank you,” Stephen replied. 

He didn’t move from where he was, letting that tiny motion that marked Tony’s breathing ease his grief and guilt. He didn’t move even when the doors opened and Potts and Rhodes walked in with another more heavy-set man with a face etched with grief on their heels.

“Strange?” Rhodes said and Stephen could hear the wariness in his voice.

“He’s alive,” was all he said.

There was nothing for a moment then a flurry of curses and question until he waved them silent and gestured for Ms Potts to come over and place her hand where his was. She did so, staring at him with deep suspicion until she felt it, then her face paled and she gasped and would have fallen if the heavy-set man hadn’t leapt forward to brace her. Rhodes came forward then, his face carved into deep lines that didn’t fade until he too felt that tiny rise and fall.

“How?” Rhodes demanded after he’d swallowed several times.

“I don’t know,” Stephen replied. “I came down here to…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I don’t even know if I would have noticed if I hadn’t gotten used to monitoring students and Masters who are undertaking deep meditation.” His gaze wandered over all of them. “But he is alive, though in some form of hibernation. I can’t say when he will wake up.”

“But he will wake up, right?” the heavy-set man asked.

Stephen nodded. “He will.” He looked down at Tony again and frowned slightly. “The spells I cast gave me a sense of… healing. Something is healing him.”

Tony’s family exchanged glances and Rhodes and Potts seemed to have some sort of unspoken conversation.

“Extremis?” Potts finally said tentatively.

“Maybe,” Rhodes replied. “FRIDAY. Can you send all of Tony’s files on whatever it was he did to the Extremis virus to me?”

“Normally, I’d have to say no,” she said, a glimmer of humour now present in her voice. “But since Boss was actually declared dead, I started implementing many of the protocols he’d established for that scenario.”

“That’s not overridden because he isn’t dead?” Rhodes asked.

“No,” FRIDAY replied. “Not until boss says so.”

Rhodes gave a soft laugh. “Good.”

“We have to get him out of here,” Potts said firmly, her head rising defiantly. “I won’t have him anywhere near… _them_.”

“Pepper?” Rhodes began.

“No, Jim,” Pepper said with a sharp gesture of her hand. “Those people betrayed him. I was willing to tolerate them under the circumstances but that’s not relevant anymore. I won’t have them anywhere near Tony when he’s so vulnerable. God only knows what they’d do, particularly Rogers. Remember what you told me about the Ultron debacle?”

Rhodes’ face became very grim and he nodded. “Yeah, good point.”

“I could create a portal, if you have a place in mind, Ms Potts,” Stephen said.

Potts turned to him. “Pepper.”

“Pardon?”

She smiled faintly. “Under the circumstances, I think you can call me Pepper. And thank you. I’d like to get him out of here quickly and quietly and we can always say you offered the portal so that we didn’t have to deal with gawkers and gossipers.”

“What about the kid?” the heavy-set man asked. “Do you want to tell him?”

Pepper looked indecisive but Rhodes shook his head. “No, not just yet. Not until we know for sure that Tony’s going to wake up and be okay. Or as okay as possible. I don’t want to get the kid’s hopes up only to dash them to the ground again. He’s lost too much.”

The heavy-set man looked slightly unconvinced but he nodded anyway. Pepper then offered her phone to Stephen. There was a picture of a cozy, comfortable bedroom in what looked like some sort of log cabin.

“Can you create a portal to here?” she asked.

Stephen nodded and stepped away from the gurney Tony was lying on to open the portal. As he did so, Rhodes and the other man got the gurney ready to move and when the portal opened, the four of them took Tony through into the house to safety and to allow him to heal.


End file.
